Monday, June 20, 2016

Book Review -The Fighting Gladiator

Dwight C. McLemore has carved out a niche for himself
writing books recreating or describing techniques of historical of armed
combat. His work on bowie knife fighting techniques, for instance, is well
known among fans of the subject. In this book, McLemore takes on the task of
describing the ways in which ancient Roman Gladiators fought and offers training
methods showing how a modern weapons enthusiast or historical re-enactor could
train to fight in a similar style. It’s
an interesting and eye opening book on the subject full of beautiful illustrations.

To properly evaluate this book, two
important factors need to be understood. First, although McLemore knows a great
deal about historical and modern hand to hand combat and weapon fighting
techniques, very few details of the training and fighting techniques of the
Roman gladiators were recorded. Almost none have survived to the present day.
Therefore the bulk of this book is educated guesses based on, for example, Roman
era artwork depicting gladiatorial matches. For instance, in Chapter One,
McLemore gives a detailed demonstration of his methodology by showing an
illustration of a carved stone relief depicting a match between two gladiators,
one of whom is a hoplomachus, a class of gladiators that normally entered the
arena holding a spear.

This hoplomachus is engaged in
close combat, but has no spear and is instead clutching a short sword. Why?
Asks McLemore. Where did the spear go? Since spears are often thrown, McLemore
hypothesizes that the hoplomachus would enter the arena, hurl their spear at an
enemy, and then follow up the missile attack with a charge while holding their
second weapon, a short sword. Throughout history this has been proven to be an
effective use of such weapons. It would also, as McLemore notes, be exciting
and entertaining for the crowd of spectators who would watch the matches. Furthermore
it fits the descriptions of heroic Greek combat in the Odyssey and Iliad, works
known to the Romans. Since the gladiatorial matches of Rome were intended as
entertainment as much as anything else, McLemore argues that this is how the
Hoplomachi fought. He then uses his background to create training methods that
improve and teach how to throw a spear, switch to a sword, and close a gap
quickly.

The highly animated line drawings
depict the techniques quite well, and make many concepts involving techniques
and suggested training equipment clear. The large size of the book enhances the
pictures and makes them clear and easy to see.

Although McLemore’s background is
quite impressive, he is not just a skilled martial artist but also a retired
army colonel, it is worth mentioning again that these techniques are logical by
hypothetical descriptions of how gladiators might have trained and not
historically recorded techniques. These are interesting. MeLemore also includes
thoughts on how to create training equipment for safe (or safer) training in
such combat. For instance, he gives instructions on how create a simulated
large Roman shield that is safe for training by cutting off a large portion of
a plastic garbage can and using it for the base.

In the book, McLemore analyzes the
fighting styles of five different kinds of gladiators. These include the
hoplomachus, a spear and shield equipped, armored fighter inspired by the Roman
image of a heroic Greek fighter, as well as the thraex, the murmillo, and
provocator, who were all various kinds of sword and shield equipped armored
fighters. The final class of gladiator
he examines is the dimachaerus, an armored fighter who fought with two swords
but no shield. Sadly, he does not
include the retarius, the unarmored or lightly armored net and trident using
fighter, but realistically this style of fighting is so unusual that it
probably falls outside McLemore (and almost everyone else’s) realm of
knowledge.

In
conclusion, this wonderfully illustrated book is an interesting and valuable
addition to anyone who has a library on either ancient gladiators of Rome or
else varied techniques of weapon combat. It covers an obscure topic, but one
McLemore apparently had a strong interest in. (The editors tell me that this
was his last book with them and he chose the topic out of interest in the
subject.)

I tend to write several entries on a subject and although admittedly they are of variable quality by following the topic keys then one should get a fairly complete view of what I think on the issue. There's a lot of good information buried here particularly on some obscure subjects related to assisting newly arrived refugees, particularly from Burma. These subjects include furniture donation issues, driver education and even domestic violence. If these issues interest you, follow the internal links, do searches, there's a lot here and I've found that often people search on a subject using google, I've written an answer, but the search engines sent them to some other entry where I discussed only a small part of the issue. So if a subject that interests you has a truly mediocre entry there is probably a good one hidden away as well on different aspects of the same subject You can't get a full picture on the issues covered in this blog by reading just one entry. it wasn't written that way. If you still don't see what you want, feel free to drop me an e-mail. Thank you.

About Me

Journalist, educator, and low level Asian history scholar who dabbles in fiction. Peter Huston is the author of several books, including Scams from the Great Beyond, Tong, Gangs, and Triads,, and the novel, Excess Emotional Baggage.
Interests include :
1) Internatinal Education and Teaching English as a Second or other Language,
2)refugee concerns and refugee resettlement,
3)self defense and martial arts,
4) Asian culture and history,
5) censorship controversies
6) the skeptical examination of paranormal and pseudo-scientific claims.
Education includes a master's degree in East Asian Studies from Cornell and a second master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the University at Albany, party of the New York State SUNY system.
I am not the sailing guy, sports betting guy or the attorney guy. These people who use the name Peter Huston are, presumably, impostors. I am the real
Peter Huston.